Book vs. Film – Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

I can count on one hand the number of people I know who have at least heard of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. I don’t know if it’s one of those books that was really big when it came out and then sort of faded away, or if it was always had something of a small but dedicated following (Nirvana’s“Scentless Apprentice” was inspired by the book; Kurt Cobain said it was one of his favorites).

I came across it in the summer of 2009 when Doe Deere mentioned the film in passing. Looking back, I did a lot of truly amazing reading that summer, and Patrick Süskind’s 1985 novel was no exception. It may even have been the highlight of that summer’s list.

Of all the senses writers employ to create atmosphere, scent is probably the most underutilized. With the word “perfume” right in the title, you have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to get; and to an extent, you would be right, there is a lot of olfactory business going on with this book and by extension, the movie. Main character Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with an extraordinary sense of smell but no naturally-occurring scent of his own. Given his ability to identify things by scent alone, what does it mean for Grenouille to have no scent himself?

Well, it means he can very easily stalk pretty young girls. Hence the whole murderer thing in the title (and the dead girl on the cover). It’s pretty straightforward: Grenouille finds his first victim, a lovely young fruit seller, and is intoxicated by her scent. He accidentally smothers her as he prevents her from screaming and ratting him out. Once she dies, he discovers that her scent has died with her. Infuriated by this discovery, he sets out to find the finest perfume master in Paris to learn the art of capturing scent.

Enter Giuseppe Baldini, an aging former perfume superstar who is being outshone by newcomer Pélissier and his stunning new scent Amour and Psyche. Baldini agrees to take on Grenouille as an apprentice if he can reproduce Amour and Psyche. No problem! Grenouille not only reproduces it, but improves it. Baldini teaches his new apprentice everything he knows, but it ultimately isn’t enough. He encourages Grenouille to head to Grasse to learn more advanced perfume-making techniques. It is only during his time in the fresh country air, away from the stench of the city and the perfume laboratory, that Grenouille realizes that he has no scent of his own. This sends him into a total existential crisis – if he can’t even smell himself in such a clean place, what’s the point of even living?

Up until this point, the book and the movie have been quite close. We have our orphaned Grenouille, the former tannery apprentice and now near-master perfumier. En route to Grasse, book-Grenouille stops in Montpellier where a local perfumier takes him under his wing and gets him all cleaned up; while in Montpellier, Grenouille dabbles in creating perfumes that would give him a scent. With his new clothes and scents, the townspeople notice him.

Movie-Grenouille has his little meltdown in the countryside and then proceeds directly to Grasse where he learns the art of enfleurage, a process of extracting botanical oils by soaking them in animal fat. Still captivated by the fruit girl in Paris, and now keenly aware of the pretty girls working in the lavender fields, Grenouille gets to work creating the ultimate perfume, the essence of beauty and vitality itself.

Hot enfleurage, soaking in liquid fat, yielded poor results when Grenouille tried to capture the scent of a lavender picker. But cold enfleurage, the process of pressing scents into solid fat, worked wonders on a prostitute. If you remember Baldini’s little speech from the trailer about how all perfumes have three chords made up of four notes each, you know where this is going.

And what of that elusive thirteenth note, the one that makes a perfume truly special? That would be Laure, daughter of the richest man in Grasse.

Grenouille is caught and sentenced to death shortly after completing his masterpiece. His punishment is to be unimaginably brutal and quite the public spectacle, but he’s got something of an ace up his sleeve – a vial of the world’s most intoxicating perfume. One little whiff sends the crowd into an orgiastic frenzy (no, really!) and Grenouille’s life is spared.

It’s one hell of a powerful tool, having a perfume that can get people to love passionately for a short time. But it’s not the permanent, deeply personal identifier that he wanted. In the end, Grenouille uses his own power to carry out his own demise knowing that he could have ruled the world if he really wanted to.

Minus the omission of the events in Montpellier, the film was pretty faithful to the book. However, the film was critically panned for having a lousy screenplay and some really puzzling casting choices. Dustin Hoffman as Baldini was nothing short of laughable; Alan Rickman as Laure’s father was not the worst choice the casting director could have made, but it wasn’t his best role.

I didn’t think the screenplay was unforgivably bad. I’ve definitely seen better adaptations, but I’ve also seen much worse. For me, the most obnoxious thing was the constant narration. A little voiceover here and there can be a useful element in a film, but it shouldn’t be the only way we can tell what it is we’re supposed to take away from a given scene.

The only thing about the movie that is worth getting excited about is Ben Whishaw as Grenouille. Sweet zombie Jesus, that man is not human. His face can go from pathetic and angelic to unspeakably demonic with just the slightest change in expression. His body language throughout the film – his scrawny frame, his hunched posture, and weird scuttling gait – reminded me of Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films.

In the book, Grenouille doesn’t say much. The lack of dialog carries over to the film, but with Whishaw’s face on the screen, he doesn’t need to say anything. What little speaking he does is in short bursts and an alarmingly thin, childlike voice. Not exactly what you’d expect from a depraved serial killer but sort of perfect.

It’s just a shame the rest of the movie was such a disappointment. And it’s so frustrating because it could have been a good movie. It was already so visually arresting and there was phenomenal source material, but none of it came together in an appealing or even cohesive way.